Nike Inc. grew its ecommerce sales 42% during its first fiscal quarter, ending Aug. 31. Nike attributes the growth to an increased focus on personalization and international expansion. Much of that growth, Nike said, is from mobile and apps in particular.
Regionally, North American online growth was the smallest, up 30%, while China grew 70% during the quarter. Nike’s app launched in 13 European countries during the quarter, and it expects a Chinese launch of the app in the coming quarter. Nike didn’t disclose exact ecommerce revenue, but it did note that overall digital revenue, including through other retailers, is in the range of 30% of overall revenue, or $3.20 billion for the quarter.
Nike’s personalization approach includes giving logged-in users early access to new styles as a way to better track their shopping habits and then using data collected to show them better recommendations and customizable products prepared for them.
Celect, which Nike acquired in August, is also helping to boost personalization. The company’s demand prediction tools allow Nike to properly balance inventory and recommend products based on inventory projections as well as user data.
“The acquisition of Celect accelerates our building of digital demand sensing capabilities by at least three years,” said chief financial officer Andy Campion on an call with investors transcribed by Seeking Alpha.
Nike is No. 33 in the Internet Retailer 2019 Top 1000.
In other earnings news:
- At Swedish furniture giant Ikea (No. 37), online shopping introduced in nine new markets helped ecommerce sales grow 43%. It now accounts for 7% of total sales, or 2.80 billion euro ($3.06 billion), up 2 percentage points from a year earlier. Ecommerce is now available in almost all Ikea markets, and the merchant plans to roll it out in the remaining handful of locations in the coming 12 months, CEO Torbjorn Loof said.
- Online pet retailer Chewy, part of PetSmart Inc. (No. 26), grew sales 42.8% to $1.15 billion for the second fiscal quarter ending Aug. 4, up from $805.6 million the year before. But losses grew 31.4% to $82.9 million from $63.1 million. However, discounting share-based compensation, the loss shrank 33.8% to $41.8 million.
- Workout bike maker Peloton (No. 284) raised $1.16 billion in its U.S. initial public offering. While revenues have been steadily increasing, Peloton still lost $196 million on sales of $915 million during the 12 months ending June 30 as marketing activities increase, according to its filings. That compared with a loss of $48 million on $435 million in sales during the same period a year earlier.
Bloomberg contributed to this report.